Chapter Four
“You’re certain the hunter didn’t recognize you?
” Jonathan’s brother Cordon asked. He scowled as he paced Jonathan’s drawing room, looking every bit the lord he was in a navy suit and trousers and a scarlet shirt.
“You shouldn’t have made contact. If she told her family, you could be in grave danger. ”
Jonathan leaned back in his chair and stared at the wood-paneled ceiling. “This is not the first time I’ve obscured a human’s memory, Cordon. In any case, I do not believe she is close to her family.”
He doubted they would have allowed her to move so many vampiric artifacts from their fortress of a base to a cramped room in a tiny museum. She’d likely smuggled them out.
“Why now?” Cordon asked, for the third time that evening. “You’ve been watching her for months.”
Jonathan groaned. His brother could not seem to get over that point.
The mission was Jonathan’s, but as usual, Cordon criticized every decision.
“I already told you, she was behaving suspiciously, spending so much time in that closet.” It was a weak excuse, but he was not about to tell Cordon the truth, that his desire to possess Felicity had become too strong to resist. “Now that I’ve planted the idea of an intrusion, she’ll fixate on it.
In a few days, she’ll be begging to hire me, and I’ll be able to watch her much more closely. ”
Hunters were pathetically easy to manipulate. They were so single-minded that they struggled to adapt to changing conditions, and they rarely possessed any creativity. When Felicity eventually broke, he’d be there to offer his help.
The other person in the room, their sister Helena, who had remained silent for the past several minutes, uncrossed her trouser-clad legs and put her elbows on her knees.
If Cordon was the worrier of the nest, then Helena was the nurturer. Were she human, she would have been at home in a kitchen with a dozen children begging for her attention.
“Are you concerned, sister?” Cordon asked.
She was quiet for several minutes. Jonathan was used to this. Unlike his youngest sister, Lucina, Helena did not chatter. Every word she spoke served a purpose. Sometimes that meant waiting for her to process her thoughts.
At last, Helena pinned Jonathan with an intense, blue-eyed stare. “Have you experienced symptoms of mate atrophy?”
“No,” he said quickly. Unfortunately, his body chose to betray him at that moment, and the rattling in his chest resumed.
He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and coughed several times.
When he pulled it away from his face, it was splattered with blood.
He crumpled it into a ball and lifted his arm to toss it into the fire, but Helena was too fast. She snatched the bit of cloth, unfolded it in her palm, then grimaced.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “I’ve had this cough for years.”
Cordon rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger. “Have you not learned from Marcus’s example? You cannot ignore this.”
Jonathan slashed a hand through the air. “Don’t, please. I would rather not fight.”
After watching both his brothers sicken before they’d formed the telepathic mating bond with their wives, Jonathan was extremely aware of the agonizing pain he’d suffer if he didn’t follow their lead and find his mate.
But death didn’t scare him nearly as much as how Cordon and Marcus had changed after they’d mated.
Cordon had once been a committed hedonist, spurning anything that did not bring him immediate pleasure, and Marcus had been equally devoted to science.
Now all they seemed to do was dote on their wives and badger their siblings to search for their mates.
Meanwhile, Jonathan still woke every evening feeling like there was a Marguerite-sized hole in his heart. If he had to choose between a slow death from mate atrophy or allowing someone else to fill the chasm his maker had left, then he preferred death.
Felicity’s furious expression appeared in his mind. He couldn’t die having never tasted a hunter. She was worth suffering a while longer.
“Have you experienced any other symptoms?” Helena asked.
From the set of her shoulders, he suspected she would see through any attempt to lie. The last thing he wanted was for her to summon Seraphina, the only one of their siblings who could pry open a vampire’s mind and discern the truth against her victim’s will.
“Muscle aches,” he said shortly. “And I can’t run as fast as I used to.”
Helena looked at Cordon, and something seemed to pass between them, as if they were communicating without speaking.
Jonathan bristled. “Stop.”
Cordon’s eyebrows rose. “Stop what?”
“Closing me out. I am not a fledgling.”
“Are you sure?” Cordon crossed his arms. “Before Marguerite left, weren’t you still compelled to obey her?”
Jonathan flushed. “It is not the same. I chose to obey.” He pushed to his feet and looked down at his siblings, grateful that his height allowed him that privilege. “The rest of you can do as you wish, but I will not bow to fate.”
“Don’t you want to experience the bond for yourself?” Cordon asked. Then, his pinched expression shifted into a smile. “Kitty wants you to know it is not as terrifying as it sounds.”
Jonathan brutally suppressed a spark of jealousy. That was the only aspect of mating that sounded appealing, to never be alone again. Once a pair of vampires bonded, the two could never be separated. If one died, the other would follow shortly after.
“No,” Jonathan said. “I’ve done as Marcus commanded for long enough. The exhibit is not a threat. After I take possession of Miss Sorrow’s artifacts, I intend to resume searching for our maker.”
Helena clenched the arms of her chair. “She’s dead, Jonathan. It is time you accepted that.”
Cordon rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You cannot still believe…” He shook his head. “What am I saying? Of course you do.” He joined Jonathan at the fireplace, poured himself a heavy glass of whiskey, and downed it. “Tell me about these artifacts.”
The change of subject was most welcome. Jonathan removed a shilling from his pocket and flipped it around his knuckles as he recounted each of the items he had seen.
“A mirror, oval, with a gilded-gold wooden frame carved with a floral motif. Two crossbows, modern design, with silver-tipped arrows.”
Werewolf weapons, although they’d be equally effective against vampires.
He assumed the hunters owned them because they employed werewolves in their hunts.
It was a horrific practice, as the beasts were locked in cages several days a month when they were not being used for their tracking skills.
Jonathan had always thought it was a myth that the hunters forced some of their number to be infected until Marcus had been attacked by a giant silver wolf in his own home.
Felicity’s uncle had done that, inflicted a painful, life-changing curse on his own nephew. The entire family followed barbaric traditions.
“What else?” Cordon asked.
Jonathan tilted his head and replayed his memories. Felicity stood in front of him, her eyes still bloodshot from the tears when the door had closed. He wrenched his attention from her face and focused on the items on the tables behind her.
“A crucifix. Wood and silver. Unknown age. A long sword with a carriage hilt.”
There was something else. A book she’d declared valuable. She’d waved it in front of his face, yet every time he tried to picture it, his mind supplied an image of softly parted lips or her fingers brushing a lock of hair over her ear. She was far too attractive to be a hunter.
“Anything else?” Cordon asked.
“Yes,” Jonathan said shortly. Then, the object appeared in his mind like a droplet of red paint landing on a white canvas. “An old book. No, not a book. An illuminated manuscript.”
The only reason he knew the difference was because he had once stolen several similar objects from a museum in Brussels. The scholar who had assisted him had repeatedly insisted they were not books but illuminated manuscripts, which were far more valuable.
“There was silver etching on the cover,” Jonathan continued. And there was something else. She had briefly opened it in front of him. “I saw a drawing of a flower with deep red petals and a black stem. Next to it was a list of names.”
Helena inhaled sharply. “What names?”
The cramped text was out of focus. He concentrated until the image in his mind sharpened. “Miss Petunia Brown, Mr. Fredrick DeLorenz, the Earl of Eastwick—”
“Vampires,” Cordon said. “I’ve met the earl and Mr. DeLorenz. I don’t know Miss Brown, but she is likely one of our kind as well.”
Helena’s mouth opened and closed several times. “It can’t be. I thought… the codex… It was lost.” She curled her hands into fists. “We must retrieve it at once.”
“Not a problem,” Jonathan said. He couldn’t wait to make Felicity suffer a fraction of the pain her ancestors had inflicted upon his kind.
Helena shook her head. “You don’t understand. The codex is invaluable. We cannot allow the hunters to possess it a day longer.”
Jonathan stuck his pinky nail into a molar, digging out a seed. Despite not needing sustenance from food, he still enjoyed the taste. “Why’s it so important?”
Cordon crossed his arms. “That is precisely what I was wondering.”
Helena rubbed her hands together. “Do you remember when Marguerite sent me to the Northumberland Abbey?”
“Yes,” Cordon and Jonathan said at the same time.
That had been a difficult time for the nest, as Marguerite had struggled to contain Lucina’s furious anger at being turned against her will.
The only person who’d been able to pacify Lucina had been Helena.
Jonathan still didn’t know why Marguerite had sent Helena away, but he suspected jealousy had been part of the decision.
Their maker had preferred her children to remain dependent on her rather than rely on each other.